“Seed” money yields impressive grant results

Spectacular results are being realized from a four-year-old, innovative “seed money” project to encourage faculty members to develop their ideas to the point where external agencies can be solicited to fund further research.

The Faculty Research Seed Money Plan combines dollars from the University, the UND Foundation, and the city of Grand Forks. So far, 83 seed money grants totaling $2 million have been awarded to faculty. The city contributed $500,000, with the balance coming from UND and the Foundation.

Thus far, external grants directly attributed to the seed money plan have generated $6.6 million in grant awards.

Not all seed money recipients have had sufficient time to submit proposals to external agencies. “Once an idea matures and a proposal is submitted to an external agency, the success rate has been astounding,” said Peter Alfonso, vice president for research.

As of May 31, faculty receiving seed money grants had submitted 40 proposals to external agencies seeking $24.4 million, achieving success on 15 of them. That’s a success ratio of 37.5 percent.

Looked at another way, seed money grants totaling $688,000 were made to the investigators who submitted the proposals. That resulted in the $6.6 million in new grants, making the return on investment an impressive a 9.6 to 1.

Another 29 proposals seeking $7.5 million are currently being considered by external funding sources, and more are in the pipeline.

Thus it’s not surprising, Alfonso says, that UND has received national attention for its partnership approach to encouraging faculty research. The involvement of the city – which sees the economic connection between research and the community – is particularly appreciated, he said.